Guest Post by the Healthy Weight Commitment Foundation
P-A-T-T-E-R-N-S … P-A-T-T-E-R-N-S …
Your curious child is regularly discovering how patterns influence their daily lives and how to make sure that these routines enhance their personal wellness. Try connecting what your child is learning in school to your life at home by using the activities below to incorporate positive patterns into your family’s busy schedule.
At Home Activity 1: Mealtime Patterns
At school, your child is aware of what she is eating regularly, and how it helps him/her perform throughout the school day. Discuss this awareness at home by introducing new patterns into the family meals that you eat together. Bringing your child grocery shopping for fruits and vegetables is a great place to start!
Make it your family goal to include at least one fruit and one vegetable into every meal. Focusing on just a few different kinds of produce each week will be less overwhelming and will allow you to try preparing them in many ways!
At Home Activity 2: Our Family Wellness Triangle
Setting wellness goals and establishing healthy, active patterns now will help your children throughout their entire lives. We call this the Wellness Triangle:
- Physical Wellness – such as a full night’s sleep, physical activity or eating a balanced diet
- Mental/Emotional Wellness – such as talking about our feelings, trying our best in school or participating in varied activities
- Social Wellness – such as getting along with others, being able to say no to people and spending time with your family
Use the chart below to record one day that you spend together. Then place a checkmark in each hour of time that was used to strengthen your physical, mental/emotional or social wellness.
At Home Activity 3: All Sides Matter
You are your best self when your Wellness Triangle is balanced, which means that all sides of your Wellness Triangle are equally strong. With your child, count the number of checkmarks in each of the columns above and record their totals below:
Physical Wellness: _______ Mental/Emotional Wellness: _______ Social Wellness: _______
Identify which side of your Family Wellness Triangle needs the most work, and make it your goal to develop a weekend pattern that strengthens this side! Develop a goal statement using the sentence starter below:
This week, we will work on the _______________ wellness side of our Family Wellness Triangle. We will do this by ____________________________________________________ for ________ hour(s) next week.
Cut out your goal statement and ask your child to put it in a place where you family will always see it. Once you’ve strengthened one side of the triangle, continue developing new goals and routines to make sure your Family Wellness Triangle is as strong as it can possibly be!
This article was adapted from TogetherCounts.com, the parent and teacher wellness program created by The Healthy Weight Commitment Foundation and distributed to schools nationwide.
